(pour ma bio en français voir plus bas | para mi biografía en español mira más abajo)
I’m Bianca Gonzalez, a PhD student in Educational Studies at the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. I hold a master’s degree in Language education from McGill University and a bachelor’s degree in Language Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. My research draws upon decolonial and Chicana feminisms, Land-based literacies, and critical arts-based methodologies to investigate the language and literacy practices of minoritized culture workers in urban, translingual, and transnational contexts.
I am a member of
Mosaïque, a research network for studies in literacy, discourse and society, and I also work as a funding and partnerships advisor with
Wapikoni Mobile, an Indigenous Audiovisual production organization based in Tio’tia:ke | Montreal.
Outside of these pursuits, you can find me organizing community crafting and writing activities, going to local concerts and film screenings, writing in my journal, taking pictures, and collaging.
When I reflect on my journey thus far and what has led me to these current pursuits and passions, much has taken root in my experience with language and growing up in a transcultural context. I, like many children of immigrant and 1st generation families in the U.S., did not learn my families’ languages (Spanish from the side of my Chicano family and French on the side of my Franco-Ontarian family) despite being basked in these languages and cultures in my neighborhood in Montebello, California and summer family gatherings in Quebec, Canada. These experiences led me to embody feelings of belonging and otherness, curiosity and shame with regards to language, identity, and culture from a young age.
While I have had the privilege to learn these two, let’s not forget, colonial languages in and out of schools, in my neighborhood, abroad, around the dinner table with my grandparents, in cultural and creative spaces...I continue to draw inspiration and want to learn more about minoritized language practices, creativity, and the sociocultural and power-relational dimensions that lie there within.
I invite you to explore my website to learn a bit about my academic, professional and creative endeavours. If you have any questions, seek collaboration, or would like to chat, I look forward to hearing from you!